This fortnight is the best fortnight in Edinburgh if you're a film fan as it is the Edinburgh International Film Festival. This is the last year it will happen in August, from next year it will happen in June to avoid clashing with the other festivals.
My attitude to the Film Festival is to find the most obscure films that are probably not going to come back on general release, plus those that might but look so interesting I don't want to risk missing them.
Today I saw a wonderful American indie film (that should come back to smaller UK cinemas) - Lovely by Surprise. Its the interweaving stories of Bob, a second hand car salesman and Marian an aspiring novelist. Bob has lost the will to sell cars, instead engaging potential customers in conversation about the meaning of life and persuading them that they need to take their partner out for a nice mean more than they need to buy a car (I can so relate to this philosophy!). Marian meanwhile is struggling with her novel. Her old University tutor tells her that to address her writer's block she needs to kill one of her main characters. However Marian finds this very traumatic and her characters take on a life of their own and start to invade reality. There are at least three layers of reality in this film and its a wonderful mix of surrealism, humour and philosophy, with some excellent insights into the creative process.
Lovely by Surprise will show again 22.00, Tuesday 21 August at Cineworld.
More reviews to follow, depending on the subject matter either here or on my Alter Ego blog.
3 comments:
Have a great time at the film festival! I can't wait for ours to come -- usually October. The movie "Lovely by Surprise" sounds really good.
:)
Clare - hope you have a great Film Festival too then. If you get the chance to see Lovely by Surprise - do!
Thanks for the heads up. I have a friend moving to the UK--she happens to love Edinburgh and films a whole lot. So perhaps she'll catch this festival or when it happens next year. Wish I could come!
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